We received the following official statement from Point of View regarding pared-down graphics cards mentioned in this story. Here it is:

"With the introduction of the GeForce 9800 GT we (POV) decided to make a low cost version of the 8800 GT with 32x32 memory which indeed runs at a 128-bit bus. The product was intended for an OEM client of POV, yet made it's way though to e-tail right now. As far as the 96SP's go, POV right now is checking to see what went wrong in the fabric, it should indeed be 112 SPs.

POV also states that only a handful of these products actually made it into e-tail somehow, We are looking into the fact how the product ended up in e-tail/retail. The one person that actually received and complained about this card, already got it replaced by POV for a proper version."

AMD announced the release of the AMD 790GX desktop platform. According to the company, it outperforms similar solutions from other companies, combining support for AMD Phenom CPUs with ATI Radeon HD 3300 mGPU (on-board GPU). Another important feature is the Advanced Clock Calibration technology that is called to unveil the potential of AMD Phenom processors.

According to the company, AMD 790GX represents the third generation of chipsets with the AMD Overdrive technology that simplifies performance tuning. Using Advanced Clock Calibration (a part of AMD OverDrive), gaming enthusiasts will be able to squeeze more performance from AMD Phenom Black Edition CPUs.

As you know, the dual-GPU AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 that is called to outperform leading NVIDIA cards for the first time in a few years, is to go on sale on August 12. Nevertheless, in some European countries (Austria, for example) these cards can be already ordered. At that, some stores claim to have Sapphire-branded producrs in stock.